Shining return from solar panels for Wolseley UK

Published: 17 June, 2015

The installation of solar panels one year ago at Wolseley UK’s national distribution centre has generated the equivalent electricity to power 522 medium usage UK homes.

The heating and plumbing merchant completed the installation of 8,000 solar panels on the roof of its Leamington Spa site in 2014, which produced 1,724,560kW of renewable energy in 12 months. This is 16% more than the company anticipated, enabling the distribution centre to reduce its demand from the grid by 27%.

John Page, site facilities manager at Wolseley UK, said: “Since its installation in Spring last year, the solar array has exceeded all of our expectations and demonstrates that adopting new technologies in renewable energy can pay dividends, both in terms of cost savings and environmental benefits.

“We have been able to reduce our energy consumption from the grid by more than a quarter, which is an achievement by anyone’s standards and we are excited to see how this continues to develop in the coming months and years.”

It is forecast the installation could generate £6.5 million over 20 years under the government’s Feed In Tariff (FIT) for commercial buildings, and achieve carbon savings of around 1280 tonnes per year.

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Commenting on government plans to increase tax on solar panels, Mike Cherry, national chairman at the Federation of Small Businesses, said that the inclusion of renewable technology investment in the business rates calculation would further discourage small business investors, many of whom may already have been impacted by recent changes to low carbon subsidies.

This month, research in The Independent revealed that solar panels can increase a property’s value by almost a fifth. Rexel is reminding the industry that the financial case for solar still holds a huge appeal regardless of cuts to the Feed-in Tariff.